And All That Could Have Been
by Cannibal Jello
Summary: David King (who else?) suffers depression, regret, and remorse as he is left to do battle with his worst, unescapable enemy...
1. Default Chapter

Title: And All That Could Have Been...Part 1

Author: Cannibaljello

Rating: R for violent themes, severe depression, a tid-bit of shounen-ai...

Notes: I wasn't going to post this up here on fanfiction.net, but my lovely confidant Lady Frost 1 insisted I did, as I'd be "depriving" readers of this story if I didn't...We'll just see if that's true or not, won't we?

Wrote this fueled by my own manic depressive disorder. Don't know what spurred it, exactly, but it was...helpful, I guess you could say, to write.

Read and Review. You may do both...or maybe just review for the hell of it without reading..? But please, don't skip giving a review. It means a lot to poor authors like myself who spend time and effort scribbling these things down. And unless you're a posting author, you might not realize the importance.

IF you do review: please don't give me somethin like "Oh geez, how sad". I'd like to see some reflective parts on your half.

This is perhaps the shortest section of the story, so don't fret.

===  
  
Intense was the cold.  
  
Not even the man-made walls of the road-side hotel could prevent wisps of air from worming their way inside cracks of dry wood, through slivers framing the doors, wafting through the single layered glass which was chilled. When touched, the ice seemed to transfer through the brittle barrier of crystal, soaking through fingertips to pass through flesh and bone to the blood flowing beneath...  
  
_...Like a virus. Infecting everyone in touch, impossible to escape…_  
  
David King pulled his hand from the window of the room encasing him, shaking away the shivering sensation and the nightmare dominating his mind. An incubus epidemic swarmed his head, screeching as it claws shrieked against the gradient of cicatrices that David had spent years, a lifetime to build, now clotted with scar tissue brought on by a catastrophic blend of days which seemed unreal now that it's past. 

Against the atramentous solid dusk that had fallen, David could swore he still hear the cries of pain, the wails of the dead, and the shuffling of tangible, rotting shadows that chased the living even though they themselves were deceased, nearly unreal.  
  
_Too real to be unreal, yet too unbelievable to be believable..._  
  
The idle man tore himself from his standing point at the glass. Why he was waiting, he wasn't sure. What he was waiting for, no one knew. The answers evaded him like the unliving shadows of the room as a small lamp clicked on, chasing the darkness away partially, but not completely. Behind a small clock that ticked and a phone that sat the gloom remained. Surely it was waiting, waiting for the bulb to burn so it could spread again.  
  
_Is that what you're waiting for - another disaster to strike? For what reason - to feel alive again? To escape the remnants that linger in your mind? To have that one distraction strong enough to save yourself from destruction?_  
  
David shook his head only to himself, for no one sat nearby. The emptiness of the room reflected the hollowed space beneath his flesh, inside where an underlying heart beat, reduced to a mere nameless organ since it no longer seemed to pump blood. It felt as though it was suffocating, - caving in on itself to fill the emptiness kept inside, leaving space elsewhere for melancholy to brew.  
  
Twenty-four hours he'd lived - twenty-four since the rebirth of a man, melted and malleable from a near death experience, shaped by a new perspective of life.   
  
_But why do I feel so dead? Had I ever felt alive?_  
  
The answer dawned on him, draping him in a curtain of aching loneliness.  
  
_Yes, alive if only for a lapse in time,_ David thought, closing his eyes. And then he remembered...

= = =

To be continued...

(Was that a cruel ending to this part?)


	2. 2

Title: And All That Could Have Been...Part 2

Author: Cannibaljello

Rating: R for violent themes, severe depression, a tid-bit of shounen-ai...

Notes: Going a little deeper, I guess.

Oh...I have the story written and finished already (except the final part...which I'm not sure I'll post) so...yeah...it all comes down to when I feel like updating. I havent been much an active writer lately, have I? .....

Thank you reviewers, I couldn't explain my appreciation enough! This one is for you!

= = =

The sight of his eyes changed; the cold, empty hotel room dissolving and falling away as a new environment surrounded him.  
  
It was hot, burning hot, with rivets of wet heat cascading down mountains of curves and dips in sinew. If it hadn't been for the tangle of angst that wove through David's mind, he might have realized that the sensations were almost...amniotic.  
  
_Safe now,_ David promised himself. _No more of that frost-bitten cold._   
  
Water fell around him, sluicing down his exposed body, melting the ice in his joints before it dripped to the drain in the floor of the shower stall. Ropes of gathered slick hair hung before David's eyes, entrapping his face in a cage yet already he was in a prison - trapped inside himself. Unlike the bars of hair, he couldn't shake what squirmed inside. On the outside, the strands swayed two and fro wildly, following the movement of David's arm as he scrubbed wildly at his wrist. The feeling of comfort was swept away by waves of pain, born from the rubbed-raw skin beneath David's touch. It hurt, it hurt so bad, but that's all he wanted - to hurt, and feel something, feel _anything_ - anything but the smoldering undying anguish within.  
  
_Insane,_ David's mind whispered with a hint of taunting humor. _You bastard, you've finally lost it all. After all these years of build-up. That dirt beneath your fingernails will never wash off, not even with the first layers of skin. But yet you still try, mumbling beneath your breath three words..._   
  
"Must get clean, must get clean..."  
  
_...So worthless, David, you are so blind to yourself. You'll never be clean, don't you realize that? You're nothing but a disgrace. You're no survivor, just a lucky man who drew the right hand..._   
  
"Lucky?" David asked himself, staring at the swollen wound. He felt his nerves tingle and sting as soap suds grew and burst over the tenderized flesh. But really...was he actually feeling? Or did his mind simply mimic the impression of pain like it mimicked everything else - self-confidence, assurance...happiness?  
  
Perhaps it was pain, though a breed he'd become immune to - distracted by a fuller, festering laceration of something other than bodily tissue. No, it was inside, unseen to the naked eye just as his inner screams were unheard; echoing inside and reaching no further. An old war wound, perhaps, caused more by trauma than infliction. There was no sharp sudden pain but rather a feeling of weighed hopelessness - a blunt burn of emotional torment. And it's worse, infinitely worse. Inescapable, for there was no anesthetic.  
  
Death was the cure to all pain, yet David was far from the coldness of a corpse. And the thought brought a weak smile that no one saw besides the souls swaying through the air.   
  
Meanwhile, his mind spoke. _They're watching you shower, David, they're seeing you naked_. His lips curled further, realizing a tinge of humor remained, if nothing else but sorrow. _Then again, it is wise to humor the insane._   
  
"I am not insane," David vowed aloud, pressing a damp palm to the swell in his chest. It beat gently, more at ease than his mind could ever be.   
  
The voice made its appearance again, as if trying to prove him wrong. _But haven't you heard? The insane can never admit to their deranged behavior._   
  
David answered the cryptic speaker. "Then I am insane and if that isn't convincing enough...then I am lost."  
  
_You are lost. At least that rings true. Just another lost soul, waiting the final moment of consciousness before oblivion._  
  
Death...the ultimate loss. Or was it? Is relieving ones self from body and mind truly a failure, or is it simple a sacrifice for something more, such as peace?   
  
The hot patter of water became smoldering against his cheeks. No, he hadn't changed the temperature - hadn't touched the knobs. He'd simply twisted them to the hottest setting before he even placed foot on tile. So why was it that his face rose in fever?  
  
His mind laughed, seemingly miles away. Y_ou're crying, David. Perhaps you are human, after all, despite the killing - oh the killing. Tell me, did you think raising a gun to a lost walking soul was putting them at peace? Or is that a justification for murder?_  
  
"They were already dead," David snarled, swiping the tears from his eyes. "Dead but still functioning."  
  
_Keep telling yourself that..._  
  
"I will and I'll keep telling others, just as they've told me. Does this mean that everyone - Kevin, Mark, Cindy, and the others are murders, as well? Who are you to judge them?"  
  
_You're asking yourself this? What do you think, David? Who are they to you?_  
  
"They're good people. Hell, I'm a good person despite a few mistakes made in life but not one of us is a cold-blooded killer."  
  
_You were cold a while back, outside of this place. Yet you still feel the remorse as if you were..._  
  
David fell limp against the shower stall wall, closing his eyes as his hair clung to his face as it flattened across his forehead, curving over gentle cheekbones, and dwinded just before the peak of his nose. The heated dampness of the hair was as soothing as a mother's embrace which soaked up the tears running free from the cage in his body. There was an escape for the dripping moisture but never for his mind. No, it was trapped in a maze all its own, rampant with free thought amongst a playground of self-loathing and angst.  
  
David realized he would have given anything to be held in his mothers nurturing arms again, instead of his own wrapped deftly around himself. The thought only brought more anguish, more pain, until his chest throbbed so persistently he was sure his heart would burst. A serpent with a thousand knives for scales began to slither beneath his skin - risen from the pit of his stomach. Through the arteries of David's heart it crept, forcing its mass past, scraping its blades against the walls of delicate tissue until it felt as though he hemorrhaged inside. But no blood dripped nor did it pop at the corner of his lips. Instead, a tortured cry of distress writhed from between his lips, jumping into the humid air - sounding intensely grieved, though it was impossible to voice his entire dismay.  
  
The serpent grew and grew, continued on until it dragged its slick body through his throat. Around it, the muscles tensed until they reached the threshold of pain. David realized that he was choking on the tyrannic beast. Harder, deeper, the pressure increased until the boundary burst, releasing shatters of sharp liquefied glass that passed through tear ducts far too small for the overwhelming rush of tears.  
  
"I'm human, perhaps too human - more human than I was before," David cried into the back of his hand, hearing the cracking of his voice and hating himself for it.   
  
A singsong taunting cut through his mind. _A human is never this weak..._  
  
"Then I'm not a human, I don't know what in the hell I am. I just know I feel human, feel things I wish I'd never felt. Hell, I wish I never felt at all, I wish I wasn't human."  
  
_Then what would you rather be?_  
  
David bit his lip, felt tissue break and tasted the bittersweet iron of blood. "I wish..." he sobbed. "I wish I was dead, like everyone else."  
  
The voice seemed to think for a moment, then it spoke as keen as ever. _Who, exactly? There are many dead in this world..._  
  
Though David believed the pain couldn't worsen much more, he couldn't bring himself to prolong the torture. He couldn't, just couldn't form the words with his mouth now stained ruby red with his blood. But the voice already knew. It knew everything.  
  
David hadn't lost much in Raccoon, at least not much of sentimental value - just a job, a dingy apartment, and an insurance claim. None of that mattered. What did were the people, every life lost in the tragedy - every infant rendered parentless, every child killed, every household pet abandoned and left to starve or be obliterated - just everything, even the cashier at David's favorite sushi bar. Everyone had died.  
  
_Not everyone, David, not you. Remind yourself that you are alive._  
  
"But it's not fair!" David spat. "Of all the people, why allow me to live? I'm no more deserving than anyone else! Another person should be standing here right now in my place, breathing, relaxing beneath the inorganic rainfall -"  
  
_- Torturing himself?_  
  
The thought was unbearable. A fresh lace of agony ribboned through his capillaries and veins, constricting at once and allowing his own body to punish itself by judgement of asphyxiation. With no air to his lungs David felt faint, dropping to his knees as the warmth dissipated, instead replaced by a battering, ramming fall of cold water.   
  
Without oxygen, his lungs spasmed and gasped but still he continued to release choked, noiseless sobs. David was no fish out of water - definitely not, as he slumped from his prayer's pose and landed on his side amongst the pool of fluid ice. So cold, it was so cold, even as he curled upon himself with his legs hugged close against his chest, partially for warmth yet mostly for placing pressure to his ribs - a desperate attempt to relieve the tearing ache. Eyes clenched shut, David opened them for a single moment to see a bunched lock of hair sway past his eyes, carried by the water towards the drain. It was black, black like the window.  
  
And as cold as the night.


End file.
